A little bit of background and my kit of choice

I first had ideas about building my own car a good few years ago, it possibly started with seeing Patrick McGoohan driving a Lotus 7 in the opening sequence of the Prisoner… who can say! Anyways, I had decided that building a Lotus seven inspired sports car would be the thing to do. It’s been a rolling three year plan, coming close a couple of times, but at last I’ve taken the plunge and I’m expecting my baby soon! I had looked at options ranging from the mx-5 based SDV Westfield to thoughts of a scratch build Locost as per Build a sportscar for as little as £250. My spanner monkeying skills aren’t quite up to the scratch build but I wanted more of a challenge than a bolt together out of the box car.I had heard good things about MNR’s VortX, after seeing them in the flesh at a couple of kit car shows and being fortunate enough to get a ride out in a lovely R1 powered example. A road trip up to Harrogate to visit Chris and Mark’s premises was instigated; a deposit was duly put down and the specs list drawn up. It was a great day out and after 10 years of planning, very exciting!

The kit I’ve ordered is a VortX RT (Road and Track) IB (Inboard suspension) in its BEC (Bike Engined Car) guise. The 2003 Yamaha R1 engine was the engine of choice, expected to put out approx. 150 bhp. With the loose target wet weight of the car being around 400 Kg, it should be rapid enough to get started with. Whilst up at MNR, I was measured up for the lightweight full race cage.

The colour scheme I’d originally dreamt up was based the british racing green and yellow nose band leading into a central stripe. Once up at MNR with the colour charts being thumbed through alternatives soon in my head, easyjet orange perhaps? But in the workshop was a complete kit hiding in a packing create… a really nice blue. This turned out to be “Rossi Blue” the team colours of Yamaha. This was decided on for the body tub with black arches. As a nice little touch the engine cradle is also going to be in blue contrasting with the rest of the chassis.

The kit should be ready for collection in a few short weeks, finding a LWB hire van to bring it all home is next up